Creation of the zine Ingleside News
TheIngleside News is an independent magazine that was created in the spring of 1998. I must say it wasn't the first independent publication I was editing.
First Writings
I mostly learned how to read way before attending school, by reading the names of the tankers and barges and cruise ships that continously went by my home on the St.Lawrence River. Already writing stories at age 5 and 6, and as I received my first typewriter at 7 (I was thrilled), it was natural for me to get much involved in my elementary school newspaper, La Craie Volante. I usually wrote one or most often two or more articles in each issue.
In elementary school, I got particularly famous for writing the text of sketches that I recorded on tapes with friends (a bit like radio theatre), aswell as hosting live "talk-shows" recorded on same template. I was well-known at school for my tape recorder which I brought with me to class, in the bus, everywhere, which amazed many of my classmates. (I am still known among my friends for recording parties and events, often unknown to most of the attendance!! Beware!! Tape recorders have much shrunken in size in the past 15 years..) Around 9 I was writing complete plays and badgering my cast of friends/slaves for them to learn their lines for the 1st of July, which was our big representation day each year just before the Canada Day yatch parade which drew crowds near my house by the river. I even wrote and directed my own version of 'Les Misérables' at 11, with 4 people playing a dozen characters, about 10 choregraphies on music and one scene that coincided with the passage of a real passenger train beside my backyard, for which we had to improvise if the train was late or early; and to this day I have not read the book-my story had nothing to do with the real characters or storyline.. I only saw a poster one day and got inspired by the evocative title..my play was about a criminal girl who escapes prison and ends up in a village where she makes up for her crimes by helping oppressed villagers to get rid of a tyrannic mayor!
When I was about 12, there was no recycling collect in my town like there is everywhere now. I had the initiative of starting a paper collect on my street and again forced my little pack to carry hordes of used paper in a little wheeled cart that we were dragging around the neighbourhood every Sunday, rain or shine. I was very dedicated to this, though my friends often complained (but hey, I was carrying the stuff too!) I dont want to take credit because hey, I didnt invent recycling but hell, the city began collecting paper not long after we started that. I also had the habit of having one day in spring, when the snow was melted and you could see all the junk around, where I would go on the railroad tracks with garbage bags and gloves and pick up all the trash. I would do the whole strip from the train station to the little forest past my house and the river shore, which took me the whole day, from morning to night. There is now an annual designated day for that and many people pitch in, so it's over in a few hours, but I remember when I was the only one doing it! I didnt mind, I loved my neighbourhood and I felt so proud when I had finished. It was in an attempt to try and promote my sunday paper collect and get more people to participate that I started publishing my first very own newspaper. The Journal de Tigas-Belle, (Tigas-belle was a stuffed female dog who usually hosted my talk-shows) was photocopied at my aunt's store's office and included neighbourhood news, fictional stories, recipes, games and even crossword puzzles that I would make myself. It was free for people who participated in the paper collect and became quite popular. I was distributing about 40 copies a week and bought the white paper I was bringing to my aunt's store with my own money.
In the Newspapers (I mean, the "real" ones)
As other journalistic experiences, lets also note that from my very young childhood, I have been an active participant with other residents of my native neighbourhood (St.Laurent neighbourhood, in Lévis, Quebec) to keep and salvage the passenger train service and our train station. As you may or may not know, we finally lost the fight; the station is now closed and the train service has been cut off on October 24, 1998. Starting in 1995, some of us had formed a more organized group, l'Assocation pour la Défense des Droits des Résidents du Quartier St-Laurent (Association for Defense of the Rights of St.Laurent Neighbourhood Residents) or ADDRSQ. The president of our association was in charge of giving television interviews as we were quite often in the local news at some point and I had the responsability of writing articles for the newspapers. I have published several in the local weekly Le Peuple Tribune, and I had to fight for each one of them because the main journalist at this newspaper was hostile to our cause and my texts always got cut off and censored, if not plain refused on absolutely absurd grounds, and I also had to respond to the attacks of that same journalist who, instead of doing his job and being objective, was on our opponents' side and clearly stated it.
I especially met in 1997 with a journalist for the Soleil, the main newspaper in Quebec City (quite an audacious move on my part):) ) which journalist who to my surprise, after having read my text, permitted me to publish it using his own writing space, and my article which was very long (it took 2/3 of a whole page, and the Soleil is not a tabloid but a full-sized journal, like the Vancouver Sun or the New York Times, for example) had not one word changed in it; it was published integrally. Not bad for an unknown 20-year-old without any diploma or connections or anything of that sort.
Creation
The zine Ingleside News, however, was created under very different circumstances. Spring 1998: I had just came back from Vancouver after a 9-month stay there, in the hope of forming a band with a girl I had met in Montreal, and who lived near my old home. Prior to departure I had massacred the shitty modern Canon typewriter I had had for a few years with a hammer in the alleyway, because it had been so crappy, especially in the end. Only 2 weeks after getting back I had bought Béatrice, my IBM Selectric II (a gem) and I loved typing on it. That's the big, bulky, weirdly-colored (mine is blue) typewriters you can see for example in Dallas on TV (check out JR's secretary), or in very, very old small businesses offices. I was still a very big fan of the band MOIST at the time even though my intense passion for them had even then started to tone down. I had been to many of their shows across Canada and met with fans who did "fanzines", which are photocopied independent publications. So I decided to make one too.
Choosing the Name
Why Ingleside ? I was using the word Ingleside long before starting my fanzine and even long before knowing the band MOIST existed. I didnt invent that word either. I have always very much liked the story of "Anne of Green Gables", by Lucy Maud Montgomery, because I have many points in common with Anne. I had even named one of my "fortified places", (which were all around the train station compound), a platform made of railroad ties high-perched above the edge of the river Idlewild, another name I borrowed from that book. Ingleside is Anne's house after she gets married and all. When I was dreaming about my future house I would always call it Ingleside. But there is another reason, I mean the reason why I had precisely chosen Ingleside as the name for my future house aswell. When I was very young, I was called "Inge-Inge" [pronouncer ee-ng-guh-ee-ng-guh], I think because that's what I used to say before I could pronounce my own name properly. Inge-Inge, Ingleside, the sonorities resembled each other. I added the News to complete the name and thought it sounded good.
Content
I first published in english for many reasons. First I was just back from Vancouver and hadnt quite taken the old french-speaking mold back just yet. And my zine was aimed at MOIST fans, an audience covering the whole of Canada so in a big majority english-speaking. I published the 1st issue in April 1998 and got canadian and anerican subscribers by placing ads in music magazines. My zine was even reviewed (issues #1 et #2) positively in the magazine Chart.
At first mostly concentrated on the activities of the band MOIST and other musical news, the zine wasnt long to include other topics, as seen in Issue #3 with my grand political article on the failings of the sovergnist parties and other political issues (I'm not a sovergnist!). At first the zine was published regularly every 2 months. I had intended to continue that way even when I moved back to Vancouver in December 1998. But Issue #6 didnt come out as planned in February 1999.
Many things happened in my life that put the zine on hiatus. Back in Quebec City in the fall of 1999, I felt like publishing it again but this time to talk about my own life more personnally. One of my friends had the habit to write down our best partys, dinners, nights out, and I thought it would be interesting if I put that in the zine. So I decided to head in that new direction. The Ingleside News then stopped having subscribers for 2 issues and became a private zine, distributed only to my closest friends and acquaintances. It didnt make any more sense to publish it in english so the Ingleside News then became a french-language zine.
Before putting out #8, which was almost ready to print, I had a serious feud with my core group of friends, which were mostly the ones talked about in the zine, so I decided to recenter my publication on more public things. I came to the realization that I had a lot to say in the #9 and that it was stuff that could actually interest any given stranger, and not only people who knew me. Having dug up a few back issues and sent them to different people, I got a lot of positive feedback. Encouraged and enthousiastic, I decided to put the Ingleside News back on track for 2002.
And it's finally by being often told by english-speaking people that my zine seems very interesting, and that they would like to be able to read what's in it, that I finally decided to start publishing an english version. This has not started yet; it will happen in spring 2003, just in time for Issue #13, our 5th Anniversary Special, when I will be well settled in my new office which isnt even built right now. Because publishing 2 versions of a magazine is a lot of work. I am making this compromise to english partly to make my zine accessible to a larger number of people, but also and mostly because there are a few english-speaking people whom I'd like to see read and understand it. My zine, I make it mostly for myself and my friends, in telling anecdotes or talking about places that not many people in New York or L.A. would ever know about. But if my zine ever became very popular, lets say I wouldnt find that too unpleasant either. I will however ALWAYS publish every issue primarily IN FRENCH; of which the english version will be the translation, with the same layout and design. This will also allow me to keep practicing my english when I'll be back in Quebec City in the spring. To differenciate both editions, I have decided that both versions will have the same content, the same cover, of the same color but that one will always be paler and the other one darker. I think I may be allowed to say I might very well become the only zinester in the world to publish 2 simultaneous bilingual versions of their zine. (Or if this other person exists, for christ's sake introduce them to me!!!)
Format and Design
The Ingleside News has kept for the majority of its first 5 years of existence the classic full-size standard format. During that whole period it was, as the majority of zines, composed of 8 1/2" X 11" black and white photocopied sheets with a supple cardboard solid color cover also printed in black and white, and stapled. What differenciated it from the majority of zines is that the Ingleside News has kept all that time the 1-page/1-sheet format, compared to other publications of this genre which preferred a more compact format but folding the sheets in 2, therefore making 2 pages by sheet. There is a certain mentality in the zine editing community that says you should cram as much as possible on each page... I have never agreed with that. I prefer writing something clearly readable and have enough space to create an interesting design. So my zine was thinner and had a bigger surface area than most others. It is true that it wasnt as easy to hold as the "digest" ou half-page format, which was half the size of mine, but for many years I didnt really care... I preferred my classic format which was definitely less clustered, made the redaction of texts on the computer easy and permitted me to use bigger images.
However as you may or may not know, we are preparing at the time of this update (November 2002) to change format, a major change in the history of our zine! It is by discovering zines with half-legal format (which is half of a 8 1/2" X 14" sheet) like for exemple Fish Piss that I realized how this format is practical for holding the zine and carrying it around. I have always found the digest to be too small, and I would never have reduced my zine to half its size, but it's true that full-size is big, it's not so easy to carry around with you and it requires big envelopes because I'm not too fond of folding it right in the middle of the pages, or you have trouble holding it to read it afterwards. The half-legal format seems to me at the same time practical but still allowing enough space for me to keep my clear style, easy to read and with illustrations and photos. So we're making the change!! The half-legal format requires a bit more organisation because you have to number pages to make sure they are in the correct order, plan a final number of pages which is a multiple of 4, and do a little bit more cut-n'paste to fit the text on the sheets, but I'll manage!!
There is also another rule in Zineworld which defines the use of handwriting as very sought after (almost a luxury) and it's quite well when the author has a fine clear hand but then again I do not adhere because 1-no one seems to be able to read my spectacular scribblings, and 2-I like my things to be clear. At first typed on my wonderful Béatrice and her 2 font choices "Artisan" et "Manifold", the articles started being typed on computer starting from Issue #6. I was then taking courses at O'Sullivan College and I used their computers during and after my classes to print my articles. The coming of the computer made my texts cleaner-looking and has greatly expanded the font choice. From Issue #7 on I have had my own computer at home.
The images I use come for a great part from magazines. Some zine editors can draw but that's not my case. I prefer to stick to the slightly absurd collages obtained by cutting and pasting diverse magazine clip-outs. Not only because I cant draw, but also because I appreciate the medium. Some zines today are becoming very professionnal, with pages entirely computer-designed by infographists, and color cover laser-printed on photo quality paper, some are even bound instead of stapled. Of course I too could charge 7$ instead of 3$ per copy and go have my color covers plastified and all, but I dont want to. I's rather stick with the good old school cut'n'paste. I like playing with the tones, the shapes, the transparencies, glue the stuff in color and see how it comes out in black and white. I like the amateur feel of cut'n'paste, and the thinness of magazine paper lets you make collages that are not too "kindergarten-style". In short, the Ingleside News is an independent publication who wants to have a sharp look while keeping the tradition alive.
I love being able to express myself freely in my very own zine and I wish to publish it for a long time still!!!!!!!
Thanks for reading!!!!!!!!!!!!